MA in Cultural Heritage Degree Details and Courses

This course offers an in-depth exploration of World Heritage by focusing on the concept of heritage, both tangible and intangible, its historical development, its international conventions, and the role of society and history in its past, present, and future. Students will be asked to engage critically with contemporary heritage concepts such as authenticity, ownership, assessment, value, and preservation that form much of our global understanding of the field of cultural heritage studies. Through case studies, lectures, discussions, and readings, students will explore international heritage policy as structured by the institutional complex, and consider both its local and global impact.

Why is the past important for the present and future? What remnants of the past should be protected? This course will introduce the foundational theoretical and methodological principles of cultural heritage management, with special emphasis on their socio-political and economic impacts. It will briefly survey the historical development of the concept of cultural heritage from the 18th century to the present and will explain how the fundamental concepts of “authenticity” and “integrity” have been applied. The course will feature a multi-week group activity in learning about and using methods of documentation, inventorying, and evaluation, which will be shown to be key skills for every heritage manager. It will identify the leadership skills integral to effective cultural heritage project management: assessing needs, describing goals, defining indicators, identifying tasks and necessary resources, and evaluating the progress of management initiatives.

A two-week intensive period of on-ground heritage management study in a location organized by the MA in Cultural Heritage Management program. The seminar includes practicum opportunities related to site management, heritage tourism, and conservation, alongside classroom sessions that integrate daily experiences. Using the rich diversity of the designated location, the seminar provides students with the chance to use what they have learned in their prior courses, develop networks with fellow students and heritage experts, and explore the latest in cultural heritage practice.

Seminars may require some assignments prior to arriving onsite. Students work on directed activities during the two-week period, coupled with multiple site visits focused on the academic work being accomplished. Daily journal entries and a post-seminar reflection paper require students to synthesize knowledge gained across courses in the Cultural Heritage Management program.

Note: As a prerequisite students must have completed a minimum of six courses in the program to register for this course, these must include 465.702 and 465.704 (students seeking an exception to the pre-requisite requirements can apply to the Program Director). Students are responsible for travel to and from the location, accommodations, and meals, as well as any specified field trip fees.

Waiver option: Students who are unable to travel to a seminar location due to accommodation needs, financial hardship, or family challenges may apply to the program director for an exemption to the two-week seminar. If a waiver is granted, the student must enroll in the internship option (465.780) and complete a synthesis paper to fulfill related components of the degree requirement.

This course examines the unique challenges faced by academics and practitioners in defining, preserving and managing rural, natural, and urban heritage at a landscape scale. The multiplicity of interests involved add to the complexity and require robust engagement strategies. Students will use a regional, national and international perspective to derive best practices for understanding the breadth of the cultural landscape concept and the opportunities for its sustainable development. Students are strongly encouraged to take this course before enrolling in the Two-Week Onsite Cultural Heritage Management Seminar (465.708).

This course introduces students to cultural heritage law, as it relates to the interpretation, ownership, management, and protection of both tangible and intangible heritage. Using case studies taken from the court dockets and newspaper headlines, students will develop a solid background in relevant national and international legal concepts, while exploring how the law is implemented through policy and practice. They will also examine the impact of heritage’s continuing politicization, including the use (and misuse) of heritage in public commemoration, nation building, armed conflict, and violent extremism. To this end, from a global perspective, and through a legal and policy lens, the course takes an in depth look at key challenges and controversies affecting the field. It considers what can and cannot—and, for that matter, what should and should not—be done to protect heritage, and how these decisions affect politics, economics, and security from the local to the international levels.

Interpretation is a key component of cultural heritage management and the visible link between heritage and its diverse publics. This course considers current practice and emerging developments in the field as well as a broad range of heritage both tangible and intangible: from museums and sites, to archeological excavations, to urban and rural landscapes, and both the natural and built environment. It asks students to evaluate the role of interpretation in site management and looks critically at interpretation across global landscapes considering both the intended and unintended consequences of chosen narratives. This course looks closely at audience and community, the control of narrative and interpretation, and the short and long-term impact in terms of identity and access. As well as discusses the skills identified across the sector for heritage interpreters and how they are used to create effective experiences.

Museums and other heritage institutions are increasingly recognizing the value of "bottom-up" heritage programming. This class will explore issues related to community engagement in the heritage sector as well as strategize ways to engage various constituencies in the formulation, collection, and presentation of their heritage. We will use global case studies (as related to memory and memorial, sites of conscience, marginalized histories, indigenous heritage, and eco-museums) to explore the challenges faced by such projects. Examining both the failures and successes will result in a broader understanding of best practices in the field and help us formulate effective strategies for future engagement.

A Neolithic settlement in Scotland, at risk due to coastal erosion, is digitally preserved through precise 3D laser scanning; the construction of the massive towers at Cologne Cathedral is brought to life with digital photogrammetry and augmented reality; multilayered cultural heritage information, images, and damage assessments are catalogued in open source databases. These are just a few examples of how a growing number of scholars, researchers, and practitioners are using the latest technology as a means to document, visualize, interpret, and preserve cultural heritage worldwide.

This course will explore the ways in which cultural heritage professionals are implementing the latest digital technologies to enhance research, conservation, management and preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, as well as methods of education and engagement for visitors. Through lectures, readings, assignments, and social media, students will identify, analyze and debate the use of documentation, visualization and content creation technology currently being used in the cultural heritage engagement, studies and practice, as well as envision its use for the future.

The supervised research course enables students to investigate a significant problem or issue in cultural heritage and to develop and demonstrate leadership, critical thinking, and communication skills. The research project is expected to result in a written deliverable that makes a contribution to the field of cultural heritage broadly defined. Coursework, assignments, and meetings with a faculty member will take place in an online course environment. This course is normally completed toward the end of the degree program.

Potential students for this course must complete the Turning Your Topic Into A Good Research Question Research Skills Module and submit a Research Proposal/ question form prior to registering. On this form, students will describe their topic and research question. Please reach out to your academic advisor in order to complete this step. The course instructor will review the proposals and determine project appropriateness and enrollment eligibility. Students will register for this course through the add/drop form.

This course is recommended for students seeking to satisfy 36 CFR 61 federal qualification standards. These are standards used by the National Park Service previously published in the Code of Federal Regulations.

The jobs of History, Archaeology and Architectural History include the following minimal professional qualifications (respectively):

• Substantial contribution through research and publication to the body of scholarly knowledge in the field of history.
• Demonstrated ability to carry research to completion.
• Substantial contribution through research and publication to the body of scholarly knowledge in the field of American architectural history.

This course is a detailed introduction to the recognition, description, evaluation, and management of cultural heritage resources. The focus is on professional practice in the United States (US), but many of the basic activities, policies, and laws have parallels in other countries. Mainly this course is about tangible heritage resources, such as archaeological sites, historic structures, museum collections and archives, traditional cultural properties, and cultural and historical landscapes. However, some attention is given to intangible cultural heritage in assigned readings. Students with a particular interest in intangible heritage may focus on them in the course paper, in consultation with the course instructor.

Students will evaluate the different values that heritage resources have in general and for specific stakeholder communities. Class sessions cover the historical, legal, and regulatory background of heritage management; heritage resource management private and public organizations at local, tribal, state, and federal levels; professional practice in various kinds of heritage resource management organizations; the values that heritage resources may hold; methods for assessing the condition of heritage resources; how conservation, development, stabilization, rehabilitation, restoration, and protection treatments are applied; how modern technology is used in managing heritage resources; the challenges for the long-term, sustainability of heritage resources management; the ways in which heritage resources are interpreted for public audiences; professional ethical guidelines in heritage management; and, likely developments impacting the management of heritage resources in the future.

In the course, students will develop a major individual written project that also can serve as a professional tool for each participant to use in advancing his or her career objectives.

The role of cultural heritage in global developmental policy emphasizes a human centered and inclusive approach. The course will introduce students to the current global discourse on sustainable economic development and unpack the role of cultural heritage including the socio-economic impacts of investment. Students will consider the role of cultural heritage in long term development strategies and policy in order to assess impacts and effects. Cultural heritage will be considered as both a means and an end.

The 21st century has seen an unprecedented threat to our global heritage— from natural disasters, extreme weather events, and climate change, to military conflicts in some of our most sensitive areas of global heritage alongside the intentional targeting of cultural sites for destruction. In this course students will gain an understanding of the risks facing our global heritage. They will be introduced to a variety of security strategies and technologies implemented to protect and preserve sites from 21st century threats. And they will analyze the pros and cons of various approaches to create their own security and disaster mitigation proposals.

Thanks to the efforts of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) over several decades, the global heritage enterprise has been expanded to include ‘intangible cultural heritage,’ the often ephemeral and ever-changing cultural beliefs, practices, and expressions that are embodied and shared by communities, groups, and individuals all over the world. The course, Issues in Intangible Cultural Heritage, explores this relatively new category of heritage, tracing the development of the ICH concept and related policy through pre-cursor concepts, concerns, and activities at the global level, from the 1970s through to today. Grounded in a critical engagement with the heritage and museum studies literature, particularly the thriving international ICH discourse and debates, and through critical analysis of case studies from across the globe, students will explore the challenges that arise with respect to safeguarding and promoting living cultural beliefs, practices, and expressions, as well as engage with key features of conducting community-based ICH work of their own.

This course explores the practice and theory of heritage tourism and the history of its developments and impacts. Through the lens of sustainable economic development, it will examine the benefits and challenges of tourism and site management in both rural and urban contexts. We will look closely at the relationship between culture, heritage, and tourism by examining a range of topics including the use of natural and cultural heritage resources for tourism development, understanding tourism development and tourist motivations, impacts of heritage tourism, international examples of heritage tourism and the importance of sustainability.

In the United States, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) outlines a process by which government agencies (and those who receive government funding) must return human remains and sacred objects to those who claim them. Repatriation is a complicated process because it means something different in almost every case. One of its earliest claims took 20-years to resolve. In 2017, the Ancient One was returned to the tribes of the Columbia River for reburial after DNA tests proved the relationship that tribes had claimed all along. But now reproductions of the Ancient One’s skull are being sold by a company that holds the copyright. When those from outside the culture to which he was returned can examine and/or profit from a replica, the distinction between compliance with the law and the ethics of return is clear. Outside of the United States, few repatriation laws exist and many argue that institutions like The British Museum are the best places to protect world heritage. Is providing care of and access to human remains and cultural objects preferable over returning heritage to those from which it was taken? In this course, we examine repatriation claims around the globe in order to critique NAGPRA and establish a compliance toolkit. Where NAGPRA doesn’t apply, heritage professionals can use the successes and failures of past repatriations, and a firm grounding in ethics, to make repatriation decisions. Nothing in NAGPRA prohibits practitioners from exceeding its scope and seeking out opportunities to build relationships with descendent communities even when repatriation is not required by law.

Heritage sites serve as physical testimony to human culture's uniqueness. As some sites are under incremental or catastrophic threat, future professionals must better understand the digital preservation process to monitor, manage, and protect our shared history and culture for future generations. Over the last decade, there has been a significant rise in the development of digital cultural heritage projects worldwide. From photorealistic recreations for educational content to immersive virtual reality installations at museums, contemporary technologies can offer new insight into our understanding of the past and play a critical role in making culture more accessible to wider audiences. This course will introduce students to a broad range of documentation technologies and visualization methods, offering a comprehensive understanding of digital content development. Instruction will include seven days of onsite fieldwork. Students will understand the benefits and limitations of the technology to make informed decisions when working at a heritage site, commissioning a digital project, or developing heritage outreach materials through online and onsite course components.

An internship at a cultural heritage organization, approved by the internship coordinator, may be substituted for one elective course. To fulfill the internship requirement, a student must complete a minimum of 80 hours of work on-site and a project, (either a research paper or a practical product) on an approved topic related to his/her experience, due at the end of the semester. Students also participate in online discussion and course work during the semester. Before registering for the internship option, the student should contact the internship coordinator for approval. At least four to six weeks before the beginning of the semester in which the internship will take place, the student must submit: 1) a description of the internship weekly duties including activities and/or responsibilities; 2) learning objectives and goals; 3) why this experience should be part of the Cultural Heritage Management degree; and 4) a signed letter of commitment from the internship supervisor. Students must have completed a minimum of two courses in the program before registering for this internship.